This disclosure generally relates to methods for controlling the transmitting of data messages to and from systems (e.g., an aircraft) and disseminating that information to the appropriate user.
Various systems may request information from other systems of interest in order to obtain information that may be relevant to the requestor's needs. The information retrieved from systems of interest may involve specific state, environment or event information that is useful for particular applications of the requesting system. Multiple systems may have an interest in different information from the same systems of interest. The transmission criteria for this information may overlap depending on the specific information requested. This criteria may include periodic reporting, event reporting, or reports that are done upon demand from requestors. For example, aircraft transmit messages on a periodic basis, in response to specific events on board the aircraft and on-demand from the flight crew or ground system. Additional messages are also available that provide information relevant to aircraft (e.g., surveillance data). The ordering, delivery method, content and timing of the messages define a messaging profile. There are many different sets of messages that may support particular services, with each service potentially having different messaging needs. In order to fulfill a real-time efficiency analysis, a specific messaging profile is required.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/424,661 (the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety) discloses means for enabling real-time efficiency monitoring and delta efficiency calculations between various user- or system-selected phases of flight by determining an efficiency measuring-promoting messaging profile index (MPI) that is translated into a messaging profile. That messaging profile is then used to obtain necessary flight and other information from one or more systems of interest (SOI), such as aircraft. Basically a higher-efficiency MPI translates to more messaging required between an aircraft and the ground system, ground system to ground system or between an aircraft and other aircraft.
There are many cases, however, where users are not aware of other messaging that may exist with a particular system of interest, and requests from some users may cause information that another user is dependent on to stop being reported, or may result in additional/different information being returned that is in a format, frequency or type not expected by the user requesting the information.
There is a need for systems and methods that solve the problem of how multiple users (applications, systems, etc.) can request data from the same system of interest (e.g., an aircraft), while ensuring that one user's data request does not impact other users' data requests.